THE NEXT IRANIAN HOSTAGE CRISIS

Victor Davis Hanson argues that we should continue to give Iran enough rope to hang itself--or at least to prompt others into demanding that the US do something:

Meanwhile, the United States, for a variety of understandable reasons, is not eager to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. A current parlor game imagines the nightmares of such a preemptive strike: It would be hard to know whether we eliminated all the centrifuges. Oil prices would get even worse. Some Shiites in Iraq might turn on our troops. Terrorists could be unleashed with dirty bombs in Western cities.

So, in the lull before the storm, the U.S. should pause, and allow its critics a chance to offer some utopian third-party or multilateral solution.
[...]
Notice: George Bush has been relatively silent during the crisis; Ahmadinejad is the one losing his composure on center stage. Nearly daily he shouts to the cameras about wiping Israel off the map or unleashing his Islamic terrorists throughout the globe.

In the brief present window between Iran's enrichment and its final step to weapons-grade production, we must keep calm and give Ahmadinejad even more rope to hang himself. As his present hysteria grows, exasperated Europeans or jittery neighbors in the region may even prod the U.S. to take action - indeed, to be a little more unilateral and preemptive in letting the Iranians know that their acquisition of a nuclear weapon will never happen.

For now, our best peaceful weapon in the little time that we have left is, oddly, our own quiet and hope that a democratizing Iraq stabilizes, and in turn destabilizes undemocratic Iran. So let the loud Ahmadinejad continue to make our case why such a psychopath cannot be allowed to become nuclear. Meanwhile, give confident multilateral internationalists their long-awaited chance at diplomacy, and prepare for the worst.

No one realistically believes that negotiation will work (except the most diehard, out-of-touch-with-reality utopians).

Personally, I think that Osama's latest rant has given us a clue how we might deal with Iran. He warns us not to go into Darfur. I say, we send troops to Darfur--enough to do the job there and attract all the nutcase jihadists to the region. We could even suggest that there's nothing Iran can do to stop us there (hence insuring that they focus their attention exactly there).

Additionally, our intervention in Darful will have the following advantage: the international left and the Democrats in our own country--who represent, without a doubt, the most serious impediment to dealing appropriately with Iran and will do everything possible--consciously and unconsciously-- to enable the mullahs to achieve their ultimate nuclear ambitions-- will be outmaneuvered. Darfur can be the bone we throw them to shut them up--and we will most certainly also be doing good--a win-win situation.

The left will like this move on our part because it serves no obvious national interest of the U.S. to intervene in Darfur at the moment. At least they would think of it as a selfless intervention. We will be doing real humanitarian good and hopefully the lunatic mainstream left will be sufficiently distracted for the necessary time (one can only hope). If they have any objections to intervention in Darfur, then we can totally and completely ignore them as the meaningless and irrelevant hypocrites they really are underneath all their lovely rhetoric.

As far as I'm concerned, that would be a tactical goal worthy of seriously considering. Who could possibly ever the left seriously again--especially on international matters--if they didn't even have the will to intervene in the slaughter in Darfur?

It could be a perfect feint on our part that will have the advantage of getting most of the world behind our actions--possibly even the UN. As we engage the terrorists there, we would simultaneously be optimizing our covert operations in Iran (I certainly hope that we are already pushing full steam ahead on that front) which would be the primary strategic target and at least one of the real military goals of our move into Darfur.

Under that cover we could carefully set things up for taking down the mullahs and their puppet president; and as many identified nuclear sites in one fell swoop with a minimum of fuss and bother. We could make sure Iranian opposition is in the right position to take over at the proper moment.

Targeted assasinations? You bet.Tactical nuclear weapons? Possibly. Whatever is deemed necessary. Send that 12th Imam scurrying back to his hiding hole and prepare as many nasty surprises we can muster for the ruling bastards in Iran--who fully intend to hold the world hostage as they become the leading edge of the new Islamic caliphate.

If you thought the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis was a humiliating fiasco; then wait till you see what Iran has planned when they can hold, not just the U.S., but the entire world hostage to nuclear blackmail. You think their rhetoric is bullying now? Wait until they believe they can threaten anyone with impunity; and wipe whole countries off the map at their whim.

Ahmadinejad really believes things will go pretty much the same way they did in his youth, when he was one of the triumphant hostage-takers and cowed the gutless Jimmy Carter into submission.

If I read George W. Bush accurately--who, thank God, is no Jimmy Carter-- then I suspect that Mahmoud will eventually be diabused of his quaint notion.